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January 20, 2016

ENG Before flying off to the sun, I let summery thoughts warm me up on a chilly winter's night, and I remember... the coffee and blueberry pie, made with berries from the nearby woods, we had on the porch of my sister Essi's laid-back home, overlooking colorful flower beds.

I've already been here once, and the three-storey home hasn't lost a bit of its cosy, unpretentious charm: here, a Darth Vader toy forgotten on the dining room bookshelf sits well with the Marimekko "Kippis"wallpaper.

In the pictures:Designer's Guild sofa upholstery fabric; Fatboy pouffes – the first ingenious Fatboy bag chairs were designed by a Finnish interior decorator, furniture and lighting designer Jukka Setälä in 1988, now Fatboy The Original is world famous; Gudrun Sjödén rug in the bedroom; Iittala "Festivo" candlesticks, designed by Timo Sarpaneva in 1966; Marimekko "Kippis" wallpaper, and pot holders; and Rörstrand decorative Pippi Longstocking plates.

I've been posting a lot on recycling in Barcelona, such as xo-in my room turning reclaimed wood into elegant furniture, but there's a story with a recycling beginning also from the Canary Islands: Macarena Bilbao – see her swinging workshop in the above photos – built her first toy kitchen out of wooden pallets doomed to the reuse center... and soon found out her children were not the only ones to love them! Now she also makes desks, doll houses, shelves, stalls as well as decorative cameras and guitars in certified FSC wood.

January 14, 2016

ENG Helsinki was hard hit by the winter's first severe snowstorm this week and I escaped the blizzard in Töölön Poni, in the midst of soothingly neat rows of hair products, and black and white interiors with red accents – like the 60s plastic hangers designed by Olavi Arjas.

I just love how this salon mixes the previous hairdresser's old retro seating with brand new pieces of furniture... And yes, I also got my bangs cut!

Recyclie, that's me, a foodie gone (re)cycling: This blog's all about bicycle riding, living and cooking on a shoestring, and, naturally, recycling, or "repairing, repainting, reinterpreting, reviving, redeploying or simply relishing" – to quote one of my favorite interior designers and authors, Ilse Crawford–, feminine and Finnish style, with an Italian twist. In real life, I'm a Helsinki-based interpreter and translator, as well as the author of "Reilun kaupan ruokaa ja elämää" (Perhemediat, 2009), that is, the first Finnish Fairtrade cookbook.